Pat Ogden, PhD
Pat Ogden, PhD, is a pioneer in somatic psychology, the creator of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy method, and founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. Dr. Ogden is trained in a wide variety of somatic and psychotherapeutic approaches, and has over 45 years of experience working with individuals and groups. She is co-founder of the Hakomi Institute, past faculty of Naropa University (1985-2005), a clinician, consultant, and sought after international lecturer. Dr. Ogden is the first author of two groundbreaking books in somatic psychology: Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment (2015) both published in the Interpersonal Neurobiology Series of W. W. Norton. Her third book in this series, The Pocket Guide to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, published in 2021, and she is working on Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Children, Adolescents and Families with Dr. Bonnie Goldstein. Her current interests include groups, couples, children, adolescents, and families; complex trauma; Embedded Relational Mindfulness; implicit bias, intersectionality and culture; the relational nature of shame; presence, consciousness, and the philosophical/spiritual principles that underlie Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.
71 Responses
I will definitely try the reaching out exercise. It’s fascinating how this simple action could be hard wired to our belief that our needs will be met. Thank you for a very informative and enjoyable conversation!
Wonderful interview. Thank you. I was trained as a Dance-Movement Therapist in the early 90’s. I don’t seem to find any differences between Sensory Motor Psychotherapy and Dance-Movement Therapy. I’m wondering if someone could help me understand the differences?
I have been thinking the same as I was watching this excellent presentation by Dr. Ogden. I trained in dance movement therapy ten years ago, at a european institution and I have been working as a dance movement therapist in Greece ever since. The process described here is very similar to how I work with clients. As well as the basic principles.
My reaction to this is bringing the unconscious to conscious through talk is the heart of therapy but can start with a body awareness and speaking from it while being with the safe other. Over time this will allow the nervous system to automatically respond with regulation. It happens on its own over time and filters into the body, movement and postures. I love Pat and feel this is an area of study to augment talk therapy in my practice. Once I talked to Pat and she noticed when listening to a lecture I was leaning forward and told me it kept me over identified and to sit back, to change different ways to sit and move in client sessions. It was impactful awareness she brought to me by saying this.
Ogdens comments & examples were so clear, I feeel that even as I’m not a coach, I have better understanding of my own body’s responses – & gives me empathy toward another’s possible responses.
Great teaching!
Thank you so much for your lifetime of experience and wisdom, Pat Ogden.
This was so rich and helpful.
This was great ! I will be doing more research on this type of therapy to incorporate into my practice.
Wow! What a great first session! This was so helpful and very informative.
I always appreciate learning new skills I can integrate with existing, as well as, new patients. Wonderful to be reminded of skills I already have in my somatic practice as well as acknowledging my deep appreciation and dedication to this work. Thank you.
It was insightful to learn how body posture can give you a clue about what is going on with the client. I will pay more attention on my next visit.
I appreciate this. I am about to finish my LPC next month. The most important thing I learned in my training is the importance of the body in mental health. This expands on that knowledge.
Grateful. This approach resonates with me. Talk therapy does not represent the beginning and the end of modern psychotherapy. I look forward to learning more and formally integrating these approaches in my work. The experiential activities offered during this discussion were powerful and instructive.
Learning that every clients presenting problems even my own beliefs, emotions can show up in our bodies
So interesting to see some movements we encourage in Biodanza can have positive effects.
Very interesting. The body is the big collector of all our experiences. Thanks for your exposición!!
Thank you Dr. Ogden
I was amazed how my body and mind changed as I followed along with your examples. I found this very informative and I see how being very aware of a clients body posture can review their internal emotions and feels.
Thank you very much. Great video and introduction to the summit. Dr. Ogden is a real treat!
I so much enjoyed pats interview. My colleague Lisa Firestone interviewed Pat several years ago for Glendon Associations Expert Interview Series and I still listen to the recording. I have shared the current program with another friend and colleague
Grateful. This type of therapy speaks to me in a loud voice. Thank you Dr. Ogden for the opportunity to be a part of this session.
Colleen
Pat’s accounts of working with clients gives testimony and insights into the ways my body hold the secrets to healing the wounds that live inside my lived experience of this body. Thank you, Pat!
How do assess hypoqrousal/ freeze vs autistic experience?
Pat Ogden has a lovely gentle way of offering a powerful message
Thank you for this lovely interview. It just made me realise again that I should do more with noticing your body. I do it with myself but sometimes forget to work like this with adolescence clients at my home.
I give 8 week mindfulness training in schools, to children between the age of 5 to 13 and there I work with body, mind & heart.
Fantastic, revolutionary, I love it! Thank you, Dr. Pat and Kaleigh! I will be using this on self and others. Love and light, blessings to you!
A wonderful and profound session! Thank you!
Thank you so much, Pat. This training helped me reconnect with my own body’s needs and signals. I also became more aware of observing clients’ bodies. Our first form of communication, even from birth, is through the body — and sometimes, while applying talking therapies, we forget to pay attention to that.
I loved it! I too did dance movement therapy with myself in the 70’s and developed into body centered
psychotherapy. I found more conceptual background in the psychotherapy but the way to tune into your s and your clients body is the same for me..
I really enjoyed her talk, and herself, she embodies what she is talking about.
Wonderful and love the information shared
Thank you Pat. While my own training introduced us to somatic work, it has been upto us to take this forward. I have tried to introduce this in my work reasonably successfully and you have given me many more tools I need to use to get the best results for my client. I will try harder.
Thank you Pat,
I enjoyed and appreciate the information for my personal knowledge and use.
Susan
Such rich material, while being very clearly and simply explained. I found many useful strategies. Loved the exercise at the end to integrate the learning. Deep gratitude.
I really enjoy this interview, the deep wisdom of the body that Pat Ogden shows and practices with her clients.
I would became one of them!
Maby my fibromialgy vanishes!
This was one of the most informationally dense video classes I’ve ever watched. Pat Ogden very clearly demonstrated how to use somatic exercises to identify Parts and to gently witness them in a pendulating physical way that will help the client become aware and compassionate toward his/herself. I found myself rocking back and forth in both joy and relief at the visual example of this simple miracle. Thank you, Pat!
I loved this part also! It really made an impact on me!
Just the integration of all with the understanding that things shift. In stress sometimes my mind takes over without regard for my body, for example. I really appreciated Pat’s presence, and her ease and acceptance could be felt even virtually.
That not everyone responds well to deep breathing and for some holding one’s breath can help regulate.
Interesting therapeutic approach. As someone who experienced trauma as a child and teenager, then again in my late thirties and who has participated in talk therapy, I know there is something important here. But I am not yet comfortable with being in and reading my own body. Look forward to the rest of the summit to learn more.
What a beautiful soul. I am so excited to start looking at this as a way of healing for my clients. Thank you Pat, you are such an inspiration.
Very interesting
always good to revisit Pat – beautiful integration of mind-body work through self/awareness… if our mind-body knows how to push away in danger it also knows how to reach out for care in safety
Thanks again Pat
From my work with patients in hypnotherapy I have found an opening of this intuitive unique God made body intelligence and specifically for me in this kinaesthetic, olfactory, auditory approach I opened up to healing sending I have more agency ( it’s inbuilt by Holy Trinity) in my own healing ( even though I have been teaching others this for decades) . Thank you Pat.
Found the exercises so gentle & insightful in terms of what feels right for me and what feels too far. It’s taken me a while to get to know & connect with my body because I have several dissociative parts that don’t have a body or only feel part of the body. Somatic work has really helped me! Especially appreciated Pat saying it’s meant to be a ‘non-violent’ way of working. I’ve felt invaded & over-ridden when people have imposed their ideas & practices & solutions on me instead of helping me curiously explore how my system needed to process or move etc. I don’t want my clients to feel invaded & over-ridden, I want to gently & curiously track & explore their body’s wisdom. Thank you Pat, this was awesome!
Brilliant talk. Great questions, and Pat’s responses were so helpful. Sure wish I could have her as my therapist!
Just amazing, thank you Pat!!
I had a patient whose Therapist started with self touch as havening and she could not tolerate it at all and she never went back
Really powerful. I have such gratitude for Pat Ogden’s expertise and willingness to share. Thank you.
That was wonderful! Thank you Pat.
Thank you for a very informative session. Love it
Really appreciated this sesson, coming away as a talk therapist with body mind awareness using movement from my Tai Chi 4 wellbeing… felt an big aha in the complexity of movement impact on ‘parts’ within. Definitely will use the shifting eg from collapse to more aligned then fully with client leading this traacking and pause to feel the inbetween collapse to more confidence … had clients come to mind throughout this 🙏 Pat and Kayleigh lovely to and fro 🌻
Thank you for such an insightful and reach of professional experience training. I have found the whole session highly informative: theory, prompting questions, experiential activities and reflection part. Definitely want to learn more!
Thank you so much for this, I already use many aspects, this helped reflect, explore some different approaches and think of other elements of resourcing. The reaching out was particularly interesting and one I’ve not used in that way. The questions at the end were also great reflective tools deepening insight.
Thank you Dr. Ogden. This was so insightful! This really resonated with me and I am looking forward to integrating some of the simple principles you shared with my own clients.
Sincere gratitude
“The wisdom is in the client, in mind, body and spirit….the whole person”:
This resonates with me, and in my role. Thank you so much Dr. Ogden. Your wisdom emanates hope.
I found very useful this conversation and bringing very concrete examples from her practical experiences with clients. It shows how we can be closed with our body even when we have some severer traumas. Thank you with sharing your experiences with us.
Most inspiring, relevant, wonderful care of us all with these body’s experimentations plus the various examples
Unable to view talks. After clicking the start arrow the window asks for sign-in. What sign-in?
How do I open the events??
Wonderful lesson! I am so glad to have this opportunity to participate and learn!
The wisdom of my body is beyond words.
I loved the exercise to end the session!
Hi, Molly. Much like you, I trained as a Dance/Movement Therapist in the mid-80s. It may have been because of the somewhat homogeneousness of the faculty, or the overall “elite” feel of the institution itself, but DanceMovement therapy, in my educational experience very definitely was a ” heady” process. Often very too down. We watched, we analyzed, we interpreted, we directed, we engaged in ways designed to “converse” with the client without words. Much reliance on psychoanalytic thought, dependence on Laban analysis, etc.
Excellent session. Experiencing the techniques as we discussed them was more beneficial for me as a therapist and as a doer learner: Thank you Pat. Always a great doing learning session.
video not available–it’s supposed to be available until tomorrow
Thank you very much. I already incorporate the body into my therapeutic approach and work with my clients holistically. I thank you for the last activity – I enjoyed it myself after this long day and will implement it with my clients too.
Thank you this was a wonderfully informative interview. What is my biggest take away is a deeper awareness of potential effects of the change activator and the need of graduated alignment when shifting from an unresolved to a resourced state.
Thank you Pat for sharing your wisdom & giving me confidence to become more body aware and to try out some of these practices with my clients. It’s always a pleasure to hear you speak .
Wonderfull!!! Thanks a lot Pat!!!
Thank you – enjoyed every part of the interview.
This is a great experience, very new techniques that I would like to integrate into my practice, which will be a different ways of working with the mind and body. Very clearly explained and easy to follow. Thank you very much Pat for beautiful demonstration.
Learnt so much from this session and a different techniques to use with clients. So much wisdom.
Gracias por este encuentro! Abrazo desde Bariloche, Argentina